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A A few years ago, I was sitting in traffic on a highway when I started eating an apple. When I felt a familiar itch in my throat, I ignored it – as usual. I had known for a long time that I was mildly allergic to these products, but it was never as bad as I thought about it or talked to a doctor. But that day, the itching gradually began to look more like swelling and constriction of the throat. I was terrified. Not knowing where the nearest hospital was, I panicked, fearing that the fruit allergy that I had not known for years had suddenly evolved into complete anaphylactic shock. In the end, I was wrong: after an hour or two, everything was fine, no EpiPen was required. But it was scary enough that I have avoided eating apples since.
Although these days, most people are familiar with nut allergies, few of us have had to think about it. But the death of Natasha Ednan-Laperouse, aged just 15, when she had unconsciously eaten sesame, to which she was allergic, in a poorly labeled baton of a manager's Pret. Natasha's parents are now campaigning to raise public awareness of food allergies.
Skepticism about food allergies may be a typically British trend, rooted in the same category as the stiff upper lip and the desire not to "tell stories". Even the idea of Allergy Awareness Week, which begins tomorrow, could make the eyes roll. Personally, as I had never heard of a fruit allergy, I did not take it seriously when, around the age of 20, I started to feel a tingling sensation in the mouth, small bumps on the lips and a pungent throat, every time I eat an apple.
With a habit of two or three a day, I closed my eyes and accepted these symptoms as a necessary evil if I wanted to continue eating apples. I turned to organic products, thinking I could react to pesticides, but when the symptoms persisted, I kept ignoring them. In addition, as I seemed to be able to eat apples cooked without reaction, I half wondered if it was all in my head.
It turns out that this type of fruit allergy is surprisingly common. Dr. Adrian Morris is an allergy consultant based at the Surrey Allergy Clinic in London and Guildford. "There are two types of fruit allergy," he says. "The first is called oral silver birch pollen allergy syndrome and affects 90% of people allergic to apples and stone fruits. The symptoms are mainly an itchy throat and itching in the mouth. This type of allergy is caused by a reaction to one of the fruit proteins, called profilin, or PR-10. "
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